Friday, January 14, 2011

The Wolf Dancer

The August 1953 issue of The Unseen #11 contains this charmingly clunky, unintentionally hilarious Artie Saaf werewolf tale, and with its indian mumbo-jumbo angle would probably feel more at home a decade or so later in one of the many Silver Age DC horror comics... that's the vibe I get from it anyway.

This one strikes a fine line for me between so loopy I love it and so loopy it's a little too much. But, ah, heck, I think I love it. :) The panel with the nightclub introduction of the wolf dance is just...so...good. Bad good, but good. I'm *so* passing a link to the post around... thanks for sharin'!

New Rule: If you are of any non-white culture, and a white man has appeared, do not say "now I must go to our secret dance" or "now we must worship at our secret gold alter" or "now we must go to the secret cave of diamonds -- no outsiders allowed!"

Instead, try something like "now we are going to the place where we let hundreds of deadly spiders and slugs crawl on us -- would you like to come along?"

How long until 1940s cliche non-white cultures learn this?? At least on this one they didn't make a white woman their queen!

I always feel for the ubiquitous cops in these tales who always have to wrap things up real quick in that last panel. One cop always scratches his head and says something like "Jeez, Mac, what do you think about that?" whilst pondering some completely mind-shattering occurrence of the impossible. What a thankless piece of comic book history is theirs.

Good question, we'll just have to hope The Howler chimes in for verification on that!

>If this great tale does not convey the importance of character, or rather, what the lack of it does to guilty and innocent alike, then nothing can.

Good point, Turok!

>I'm *so* passing a link to the post around... thanks for sharin'!

And thank you, Lisa! Very much appreciated!

>How long until 1940s cliche non-white cultures learn this??

Haha! So true. Another one: putting on a mask stolen from someone that you've killed will NEVER come off and/or will possess you / kill you. Every. Time.

>I always feel for the ubiquitous cops in these tales

Me too, Mykal... and seriously, someone should put together a "Poor Cop Ending" collection of pre-code tales with this sort of head scratchin' finale.

>Oh Lord- "This is my curse- I, AaAaG!"

And don't forget "OOOOOOH OOOOOOOOH!" and "GRAWWWRRR!"

Got some requests coming up here shortly, but maybe we'll take another look at a few more Unseen tales... I'm digging through my long boxes now to find something extra worthy of following this goofy doozy! Stay tuned!

Your Horrible Host of Horrors

(aka Steve Banes) Editor / co-editor of IDW's Chilling Archives of Horror Comic Books: ZOMBIES, RETURN OF THE ZOMBIES, DEVIL TALES, and MUMMIES, as well as co-host of the bi-monthly HAUNTED HORROR comic series and HAUNTED LOVE miniseries. (All image scans and photography by me from items found in my own personal, putrid collection-- except where noted.)

"...the capital of online comic book horrors... saying "Not the best story THOIA has run" is a bit like saying "one of Beethoven's lesser symphonies!"---Quasar Dragon

"...the object of all horror chicks' wet dreams... a comixkaze of awesome!"---Killer Kittens

"...an online repository of vintage comic fear fare where individual stories from long out-of-print issues are posted in high resolution, page by page. For a fan of EC, Atlas and other Silver Age-era comic companies, it is pure heaven (and hell)..."---Bryan Reesman (Attention Deficit Delirium)